Abstract
This thesis examines two mediums of nonverbal communication, food and clothing, in the works of four women writers from diverse cultural backgrounds. Four novels are discussed: Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston, 1937), The Color Purple (Alice Walker, 1982), The Joy Luck Club (Amy Tan, 1989), and Like Water for Chocolate (Laura Esquivel, 1992). My approach is interdisciplinary, using the tools of sociology and anthropology to investigate how these writers use food and clothing metaphorically and as mediums for the transmission of women's stories. The thesis emphasizes the ways in which food and clothing act as dual agents, subverting traditional ideas about woman's power and serving as vehicles through which women pass on reinscribed traditions.
Buerkle, Elizabeth Turner (1995). Food and clothing as modes of discourse: Women writing in material and culinary languages. Master's thesis, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from
https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /ETD -TAMU -1995 -THESIS -B84.